Precision Dice

MajorDomo

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I use a glass and rounded 10mm dice. David Goldman sells these at the ASL OPEN (also at ASLOK when he attends).

I've never been much concerned about dice, dicebots, towers, cups...

Toby offered to me the use of his precision dice at the St. Louis tourney. I accepted and they really took to me, especially for my morale checks.

So I decided to get some ASL glitz - Precision Dice. Did some looking on the web, just confused me and thus I am asking for some help.

A. Who makes Precision Dice as many dice makers claim they have "precision" dice.

B. Do Precision Dice all have square corners (I prefer the rounded corner dice as the really mix it up)?

C. Do Precision Dice come in 10mm, which is the size of the Goldman dice and ideal for my glass.?

Thanks for any help,
Rich
 

RandyT0001

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I use a glass and rounded 10mm dice. David Goldman sells these at the ASL OPEN (also at ASLOK when he attends).

A. Who makes Precision Dice as many dice makers claim they have "precision" dice.

B. Do Precision Dice all have square corners (I prefer the rounded corner dice as the really mix it up)?

C. Do Precision Dice come in 10mm, which is the size of the Goldman dice and ideal for my glass.?
A. Most precision dice are made for casinos and backgammon. You can buy from a backgammon website that sells pip marked precision dice. You can also buy them from Battleschool, an ASL retailer, in 16mm, 14mm, 12.5 mm sizes with only pips or others that have specialized graphics for the single pip.

B. Battleschool carries ball cornered (rounded corners) precision dice. Some backgammon websites carry ball cornered precision dice.

C. I think the smallest precision dice are 12.5mm (1/2"). I think there are some backgammon websites that sell 10mm precision dice but cannot recall the site.
 

Rock SgtDan

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Square cornered dice need to be thrown and bounce to be fair. Backgammon dice have round corners and roll fair.
 

Alan Hume

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I wholeheartily recommend Chris Doary and Battleschool, FANTASTIC customer service and amazing dice
I've started to build a collection of them, I never intended to (just meant to buy a basic set of backgammon dice) but once I saw just how good they
are I couldn't help myself

So, yep, BATTLESCHOOL all the way:cool:
 

FDBarbarian

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I have a question regarding those who use the precision dice and play against someone who doesn't use them. Is there a advantage/disadvantage to either side? Are there any rules in tournaments on using certain die? I use the Battleschool dice because they look cool and sometimes pondered the plus and minuses with using them.
 

RandyT0001

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I have a question regarding those who use the precision dice and play against someone who doesn't use them. Is there a advantage/disadvantage to either side? Are there any rules in tournaments on using certain die? I use the Battleschool dice because they look cool and sometimes pondered the plus and minuses with using them.
Precision dice are manufactured from a material with uniform density. From a large block, a laser cuts out the cubes. The shallow holes for the pips are drilled on each face and filled with a colored plastic paint of the same density of the base material. The die has as much density on the six pip side as the one pip side, the edges and faces are square to each other. The corners are rounded in a ball tumbler. Doing this increases the ability of the die to roll before resting on a die face and minimizes the damage a non-rounded die would do to surfaces the die is cast upon.

Non-precision dice might have slight difference in density that affects how the dice roll. Such a die might favor one face or edge by a few hundredths or tenths of a percent over 1000 rolls.

Using precision dice is about generating, as perfectly as can be achieved, a "fair" result, as is technically and physically possible to generate using two cubic die.

I think one or two ASL tournaments (and virtually all 'high stakes' backgammon tournaments) have a 'preference' rule on the use of precision dice. If one of the players makes a request to use precision dice for the game then both players are required to use them.

Battleschool's themed dice allow the player to connect to the battle and/or the forces wherein the scenario is set by using appropriately theme dice, Market Garden, nationality dice, etc. I have a set of SS dice I use when I play SS in a game.

I wish that Battleschool had more choices for nationality or battle themed 14mm dice.
 

jrv

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It would depend on the particular dice being used. I took the worst-looking die I had, the one that looked like it ought to be unbalanced with deep-drilled holes, and tested it four-hundred times. I couldn't show it was different from the expected results at even the 90% level. Now maybe after a few thousand throws it may turn out to have a statistically significant variation from the expected values, but four-hundred tests is a lot. It is not, BTW, a die that I use; I just happen to own it.

Some tournaments have rules on dice; some don't.

I am told that the foil on battleschool dice eventually wears off. I don't know this from experience. I do know from experience that sharp-corner precision dice chip. Which is unfortunate because I like them better.

JR
 

von Marwitz

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I have a question regarding those who use the precision dice and play against someone who doesn't use them. Is there a advantage/disadvantage to either side?
  1. Chances are, that precision dice roll a bit "fairer".
  2. Chances are, too, that this tiny little bit of difference between "precision" dice and "normal" dice does not have any significance on the game.
  3. Chances are very much, that other factors are tremendously more important to the game, i.e. in which situation you roll good or bad (i.e. malf your most important weapon, or burn that Tiger with a Critical Hit), your skill, your rules knowledge.
I have given an example of what kind of difference you might be looking at pitting "perfect" dice vs. "normal" out of the box Beyond Valor dice based on a (large!) sample of 1000 rolls here:

http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/deck-dice-fair-dice.137761/page-2#post-1897811

You can also google for the "chi²"-Test to determine if the aberration of your dice compared to perfect dice is statistically relevant.

If you are interested in (tons of) discussions about the merits (or not) of precision dice, use the following search query for google:

site:gamesquad.com "precision dice"

Some people feel at unrest if people do not or do not want to use precision dice when asked. The reasons for this could be that they want the dice to just roll a tiny little bit "fairer" (even if it is unlikely that it will significally affect the game), that they fear you will cheat them with non-precision dice or that they are just superstitious about dice and attempt to fight this with "precision". The most probable reason is the first one given. You could see it as an "advantage" to put these people's mind to rest.

Are there any rules in tournaments on using certain die? I use the Battleschool dice because they look cool and sometimes pondered the plus and minuses with using them.
A few tournaments have rules requiring both sides to use precision dice if one player asks for them to be used. I don't believe any tournament requests a particular brand or form of precision dice. Most tournaments do not have any rules requiring precision dice under any circumstance.

von Marwitz
 

Spencer Armstrong

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I bought all of my dice here. They come in the mail and a reasonably priced. I have done it several times. I also buy from Battle School but only the ones with all pips. -- jim
Same place I've bought mine. Had one mis-pack, he handled flawlessly. So A+ customer service.
 

Sparafucil3

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Same place I've bought mine. Had one mis-pack, he handled flawlessly. So A+ customer service.
If I recall correctly, I think I sent you there. Maybe it was someone else. I have shared it with those who ask before. -- jim
 
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